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Using Sensors for Client-side Wi-Fi Troubleshooting

In this piece, Drew Lentz makes a great point about wireless networks. It’s not just about what’s going on behind that access point. That’s only half the network. True, it’s the more controllable and orderly part, so it’s natural to focus on it. But the other half is on the client-side. The devices that connect to the wireless network may be hard to predict, but making sure end-users are getting a productive experience is the whole point of the network. With that in mind, Drew profiles two approaches. A more hardware agnostic approach from NetBeez, which provides a Linux agent that talks to their dashboard to report analytics. It’s an interesting solution that doesn’t require lock in to any particular networking hardware setup. Cape Networks takes the opposite approach, providing an all-in-one hardware package that includes cellular connectivity, allowing you to set it up with just power. Both provide ways to see what’s happening from the client-side, and give you a complete picture of a wireless network.